SP2 may change your life
You undoubtedly know that Windows XP Service Pack 2 is on the way; Microsoft is now promising shipment some time in August. But unlike previous Windows service packs, this one has some serious implications for many developers. This appears to be one of the cases that Microsoft has chosen to indicate that the focus on security is more than just talk. Many of the network interfaces in Windows XP are being tightened down by SP2.
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Longhorn can wait: Security patch for XP is priority
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer recently told developers
that completing a security patch for Windows XP is such a high priority,
that work on it took precedence over completing Longhorn, the
much-anticipated but delayed new release of the operating system.
Microsoft is urging developers working on or maintaining applications
running on Windows XP to get up to speed on Service Pack 2 (SP2). Read
more
.

More Windows

The shifting sands of Windows
It's no particular secret that Microsoft is testing Windows XP Service Pack 2, and getting ready for a planned mid-year release. But if you're a developer, you know there's more to a new Windows release than tweaked functionality, bug fixes, and new features. There's also the inevitable list of things that won't work the way that they used to. With each new release of Windows, developers around the world cross their fingers that their own code won't end up on the 'broken' list.
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The long and short of Longhorn
Its feature set is far from finalized, but Longhorn is expected to deliver stronger OS 'fundamentals' (the so-called Base OS Services), an overhauled presentation layer, radical enhancements to the file system and major new features based on Web services. Simon Yates, senior analyst at Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research, summarizes some of the key changes here.
To read
more, click here.